The Last Suppers gbcm-4

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “The Altar Guild? Who is it?”

  He quickly slunk out the door without answering. I wanted tot ell him that someone should load the cake in the van and drive it over to Hymnal House. Filled with resolve to check on doings in the kitchen, I reseated the hat, stalked after Arch, and promptly collided with Lucille Boatwright.

  She glared up at me, “Goldy! Where do you think you’re going? Your hat isn’t even on straight. And your hair is a disaster.”

  “I’m going to check on the cake and – “

  “You are doing nothing of the sort – “ The pealing of the church phone cut short her scolding. “Oh, why hasn’t someone turned on that fool answering machine? Contraption! Father Pinckney never even would have allowed … “ Lucille stormed off, muttering.

  I nipped down the hall, past the Sunday School rooms and the oil portrait of the greatly missed former rector, and finally slipped into the kitchen. Any haven in a storm. Besides, if the churchwomen dropped the hotel pans of pasta or scorched the beef, they’d have to wait until the Apocalypse before I catered another of their luncheon meetings.

  Happily, the volunteer servers were doing a superb job. Two women pushed carefully out the kitchen’s side door carrying bacon-wrapped, brown sugar-crusted artichoke hearts. Another team picked up the pans of creamy Parmesan-sauced fusilli and flaky phyllo-wrapped spinach turnovers. Crystal bowls brimming with jewellike slices of kiwi, fat strawberries, and thick bunches of black grapes would be next. The smooth, layered terrines, all six of them, were snuggled into coolers and set on wheeled tables next to the juicy tenderloin and sherry-soaked Portobello mushrooms.

  Come to think of it, I was kind of hungry. No time for breakfast, so much to do, and … where was the cake? It was supposed to be set up on a special wheeled table already …

  “What are you doing here?” gasped a shocked voice. Arch was right: Agatha Preston did look like an Episcopal Pocahontas. Her beaded, sheath-style salmon-colored dress boasted a foot of knotted fringe at the hem, and she wore a needlepointed blue-and-coral headband horizontally across her forehead. Her long braided hair had been dyed into unattractive streaks. At the moment, Agatha’s pretty face had the hidden, sour look of someone who had been passed over for a prize. Perhaps she didn’t enjoy being one of Lucille’s henchwomen. The volunteers whisked platters around us out the kitchen door and gave our little confrontation sidelong glances. Stuttering, I backed up into the refrigerator.

  “Checking on the cake,” I said lamely, then whirled to open the refrigerator door before Agatha could question me further. And there it was – the shimmering four-layer creation of ultra-cool, ultra-talented Julian Teller. Julian, in addition to boarding with us and helping with Arch, was an apprentice caterer and ace pastry chef, despite the fact that he was still a senior in high school. When I had told him the traditional wedding cake was white on white, but confessed I was partial to chocolate with mint, he’d run his hands through his bleached, rooster-style haircut and said, “Hey man, it’s your wedding,” then proceeded to concoct a dark fudge cake with white peppermint frosting. When I’d vetoed the traditional topping of bride and groom plastic statuettes – my first wedding cake had had them, and what good had they done me? – Julian had smilingly flourished his frosting gun and created row upon row of abstract curlicues, swaying rosettes, stiff leaves, and curling swags. The flower-mobbed cake resembled a frenzied rock concert.

  “Excuse me, Goldy,” said Agatha, less timid this time.

  I turned. Agatha’s dress barely concealed a scarecrow figure. She dispelled her unhappy look with a faint smile, and I remembered the last time we’d talked, at a barbecue I’d catered for her husband’s hunting buddies. She’d been wearing a beaded sundress of the same fish-flesh hue, and given me the identical wan smile. Now she made an uncertain shake of the streaked braids.

  “Goldy, if you don’t go back to the sacristy, Lucille is going to be extremely upset.”

  “Yes, but the cake should be out by now – “

  “Please. Hymnal House is almost set up. It’s all going to be fine. You don’t know Lucille when she gets upset.”

  Lucky me. I started back down the hall. Unfortunately, that narrow space was filling up with people depositing their it’s-April0in-Colorado-and-might-snow coats in the Sunday School rooms. When they spotted me, Old Home Week officially began. The first to leap in my direction was Father Doug Ramsey, Olson’s tall, gangly new assistant, who was also a member of the diocesan Board of Theological Examiners.

  “The star of the show!” he cried, causing heads to turn. Doug Ramsey had a delicate, triangular face and long, loopy ringlets of black hair that made his look closer to eighteen than twenty-eight. His compensation for looking too young was talking too much. “The whole committee’s here,” he gushed,” which is quite a compliment to you. Of course, I don’t suppose the candidates are here, but then again, they’re probably studying for the tests we mean old examiners are dreaming up for them next week … You know, I’ll don a stern expression and ask about the Archbishops of Canterbury, and then canon Montgomery will ask about the history of the Eucharist.” He stopped talking briefly to flutter his knobby fingers dramatically on his chest. “And no matter what the question is, that awful Mitchell Harley will probably flunk again – “

  I said desperately, “Doug, please. Have you seen father Olson? He seems to have forgotten today’s the day. In a pinch, could you do a wedding?”

  Father Doug Ramsey’s face turned floury-white above his spotless clerical collar. A long, greased comma of black hair quivered over his forehead. Arrested in midspeech, his mouth remained open.

  I felt a pang of regret. “I’m kidding, Doug. I just don’t want to be delayed.”

  “Oh, no,” he said tersely, then added with characteristic self-absorption, “then you’d never be back in time to do the candidates’ examinations. But … a wedding … I don’t’ know what I’d preach on. Love, I suppose, or maybe the trinity … “

  This uneasy speculation was interrupted by a series of unearthly groans. I peered through the crowd in the hall and saw Lucille Boatwright sagging against one of the priests. She was moaning loudly. Remembering Agatha’s warning, I guessed I was seeing Lucille Boatwright very upset.

  “I’m coming!’ I cried. “Just wait a sec!”

  I shouldered my way through the folks in the hall, all of whom wanted to touch me or ask questions. Where’s Schulz? asked one of the policemen, whose face I vaguely recognized. Where’s Arch? asked a Sunday School teacher. I was in traction and haven’t seen him since I was healed . . A long-ago church friend’s voice: Goldy, what a stunning suit! So much better than that froufrou gown you wore last time, dear. As politely as possible, I brushed the well-intentioned questions and fingers aside. Now my hair, my suit, everything was going to be a mess, I thought uncharitably. Why weren’t these people out in the pews listening to the organist make approved music? Reaching the end of the hall, I saw a priest and a female parishioner ministering to Lucille Boatwright, who had slumped to the floor. Clearly she took the customary procedures more seriously than I ever imagined.

  I said, “I was only in the kitchen – “

  “We’re going to have to call an ambulance,” said the woman. “I think she’s having a heart attack.”

  “But I just stepped down the hall for a moment – “

  The cleric looked up at me. His face was very flushed. “I think your fiancé is on the phone,” he said. “There’s some kind of problem – “

  I rushed past them into the choir room. The white telephone wire lay coiled on the floor. Bewildered and slightly panicked, I snatched up the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” said Tom Schulz. His voice sounded flat, infinitely dejected. In the background I could hear a faint tinkling like windchimes.

  “Sorry about what? Where are you?”

  “Just a sec.” The phone clacked down on something hard. He came back to the line after a moment. “Miss G.” He sighed deeply. “Tell everybody to go home.”

  “What?” This wasn’t happening. “
Why? Tom, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m out at Olson’s house. He called with car trouble, asked me to come get him. And I found him.”

  “You –?”

  My fiancé’s voice cracked. “Goldy, he’s dead.”

  2

  “Tom. I don’t understand. Please. Tell me this isn’t real.”

  “He just died a few minutes ago. When I got here, he’d been shot. Shot in the chest,” Tom Schulz added in the distant, flat tone he used when discussing his work. “I’ve called in a team. Look, I have to go. You know the drill, I need to go stay by the body.”

  “But, how … ?Are we going to get married? I mean, today?”

  “Oh, Goldy.” Despair thickened his voice. “Probably not. The team will be here for hours.” He paused. “Want to try to do a civil ceremony tonight?”

  “Do I – “ I did not. Not a hurry-up ritual. Like it or not, I was an Episcopalian, what they call a cradle Episcopalian, the Anglican equivalent of the American Kennel Club. If I was going to get married again, then it was going to be in front of God, the church, and everybody, and the wedding was going to be performed by an Episcopal priest.

  Oh, Lord. My hands were suddenly clammy. Father Olson.

  I ripped the hat off my head. A knot formed in my chest. This was a mistake. This phone call was some awful nightmare. Any moment I was going to wake up.

  I stammered, “Tom, what happened to Father Olson?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what we have to find out. Do you want to go back to your place and wait for me?”

  “Just come to the church. Please. I’ll wait.” I cursed the tremble I my voice. “Take care.”

  I hung up. The air in the choir room suddenly felt thin. Father Olson’s absence loomed. I tried to erase images of a gun being raised menacingly in his direction. Of shots. Beside me, the silver bar holding the burgundy choir robes glimmered too brightly from the neon light overhead. In the hallway, shouts, squawks, and cries of disbelief rose to a din that rivaled the hammering in my ears. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

  “Goldy, what the – “

  Slowly, I turned. Marla Korman’s large presence filled the door to the choir room. The noise from the hallway roared louder.

  “Goldy, you look like hell! Hey! Why’d you toss your hat? I went to four stores to find that thing.” Marla closed the door behind her. “What’s all the commotion out there about? And look at your suit. Have you been sitting on the floor? For crying out loud!”

  She click-clacked over in her Italian leather heels and put her small hands with their polished red nails on my shoulders. An incongruously conservative navy suit hugged her wide body, which was usually far more outrageously clad. The tight French twist taming her thick, normally frizzed brown hair seemed somehow absurd. She had worn the suit and pinned up her hair for my wedding My wedding that now, suddenly, was not to be. I wondered how long it would take for the noisy news-sharing of the hallway to reach the people out in the pews.

  “Hoohoo, Goldy!” she said brightly. “I know you’re in there. You want tot ell me what’s going on?”

  I tried to reply twice before I could say, “Olson’s dead. Tom … “

  She grasped my shoulders more tightly. “Dead? Dead?” Her voice shrilled in my ear.

  “Yes.” I made a feeble gesture toward the hall. “That’s probably the cause of all the racket. I don’t know. Has anyone out there said anything about the wedding?”

  “They can’t – “ Marla released me and pivoted on her heels. Her pumps gritted against the vinyl floor as she tiptoed back to peek down the hall. Again the noise roared in. After a few moments of observation, she quietly closed the door and turned back to me. “Looks like Lucille Boatwright passed out, but she’s conscious now. What happened to Father Olson? What do you mean, he’s dead”? Did he have a heart attack, or what?”

  Tom’s advice: Give away nothing. Abruptly I remembered his green eyes and handsome face turning grimly serious one night as he wiped his floral-patterned Limoges dessert plates and spoke to me about his work. If I confide in you, Goldy, tell no details to anyone, not even to those you trust, because you don’t know where those details are going to end up. One did not divulge facts such as shot in the chest to Marla. I knew too well her large body and large spirit did not prevent her from being an even larger gossip, best friend or no.

  Marla’s small hands moved frantically along the pearl choker at her neck, another one from the upcoming raffle. “I mean,” she was saying, “did he have some kind of medical problem we didn’t know about? Aneurysm? Stroke? I mean, him of all people. With all that talk about healing, you know. Oh, listen to me. I even went out with … “

  I told her the minimal story as I knew it would soon become available: that Tom Schulz had gone to Father Olson’s place to pick him up. That an intruder, or someone had mortally wounded Olson before Tom arrived.

  “Oh, my God, he was killed?” Marla’s plump cheeks went slack with disbelief. There was a knock at the choir door. Marla opened it, dispensed with the intruder, then turned back to me. Her voice turned fierce. “Oh, why did Olson insist on living way out Upper Cottonwood Creek?” She tensed up her plump hands, crablike, and gestured widely. “He thought all he’d need was a fancy four-wheel-drive vehicle. Didn’t he realize not having neighbors close by could hurt him? I just can’t believe it. He was only, what thirty-five?”

  My mind reeled again, trying to compute. “I guess. But I do know that the … ceremony is off.” The deep breath I attempted to take didn’t alleviate a cold wave of shivers. “All the food … “

  Marla tilted her head to consider. “Want me to get one of the folks tending Lucille in here for you? I heard someone say they were calling Mountain Rescue.”

  “No, no. Thanks”

  “I still don’t understand how Olson was killed.”

  “Well, I guess that’s what the police team will find out.” I was suddenly deeply embarrassed by the thought that my parents, son, friends, and acquaintances were all sitting in the church pews, waiting for my wedding procession to begin. “Does everyone out there know what happened?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.” She hesitated, then minced tentatively back out the door. The din in the hall had shifted to a more pronounced tumult of raised voices and stamping feet out in the congregation. The pain in my chest made an unexpected twist. I was still having trouble breathing. Within minutes Marla returned to report. “Apparently, when Tom called, he wanted to talk to you but Lucille wouldn’t let him. They argued. You can imagine Lucille insisting the bride couldn’t be disturbed. Even if it was the groom calling. And the groom was a cop. So Schulz finally told her about Olson. He said to send someone for you immediately.”

  Marla began to pull the pins out of the French twist. No ceremony, no fancy hair.

  “So then Lucille collapsed,” she went on grimly. “There was a priest nearby who tried to tend to her, and she told him that your fiancé wanted you on the phone. Eventually she gasped out the news that Olson was dead. Father Doug Ramsey just made an announcement that your wedding would be postponed. And why. Good old Doug is trying to start a silent prayer service. Of course, silence is the last thing the poor guy’s going to get. It’s pretty crazy out there. Looks as if the cops who were here, Schulz’s friends, are scrambling outside for their car radios.” She shook out her mass of crimped hair, stowed the hairpins in her suit pocket, and with sudden resolve took my arm. “We have to get you out of here. People are going to be coming in to use the phone. And you’re the bride, you don’t’ need to have everyone asking you questions. Let them read it in the paper. Where were you before Lucille put you in the sacristy to wait?”

  Olson’s office.”

  “Anybody else there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Let’s go.”

  She steered me out of the choir room. Lucille Boatwright was now sitting, slumped, in a kid-size chair hastily provided form one of the Sunday School rooms She was moaning again, so I assumed she was not in imminent danger. Marla and I made a quick left out the side door beside the sacristy, the same door I
had come through with so much hope only fifteen minutes before. All the attention focused on Lucille meant the exit of the would-be bride and her matron of honor went unnoticed. Thank God for small favors, my father would say.

  The chilly air outdoors was a pleasant shock after the too-warm, too-close air in the church. When my beige shoes slipped on the ice, I begged Marla to sit with me on the bench by the side door for a moment. I needed to clear me head of the image of a bloodstained Father Olson. She reluctantly took a place beside me and muttered that someone could find us here. But she took my right hand anyway, and firmly held it in hers.

  At length she said, “Look, Goldy. Don’t think about Olson.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Then let’s go into the office.”

  “I can’t.”

  I shivered and glanced at the columbarium that Lucille and the parish Art and Architecture committee were having built in honor of old Father Pinckney, Lucille hadn’t obtained Father Olson’s permission, much less a building permit, but excavation was moving ahead anyway, despite the fact that St. Luke’s, and the columbarium, were in the county floodplain. The idea of Father Olson’s ashes being the first interred there made me avert my eyes and look up the steep hill across the street, where the old Aspen meadow Episcopal Conference Center’s Hymnal House and Brio Barn overlooked our church and Cottonwood Creek. I could see Lucille’s henchwomen still moving through the doors of Hymnal House with platters of food. So much for our wedding reception in the historic district.

  “let’s go,” I said. “This is depressing me.”

  Once we’d entered the church office building, Marla sat me down and asked if I needed anything.

  “Just Arch. And nobody else, please. Maybe Julian,” I added. “I don’t want to go home, and Tom promised he’d be along as soon as he could get away.”

  “Gotcha.” Marla shut the heavy wooden door behind her.

  The air in the office building seemed stuffier than the church. Some of the remnants of the ongoing renovation were piled by the desk in the secretary’s outer office: torn-out drywall, pipes, an old faucet. My street clothes and garment bag hung forlornly on a door hook beside a faded reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. I gazed at the painting, in which a sunlit Jesus and eleven followers talk and gesticulate while Judas reaches for food, his face in shadow. My eyes were drawn to the ph9otographs above the desk: Father Olson, somber with Sportsmen Against Hunger and the carcass of an elk, smiling with the Aspen Meadow Habitat for Humanity Committee, standing proudly with the committee I was on with him, the diocesan Board of Theological Examiners. Had been on with him. Someone would have to call the diocesan office. A photograph over the desk made my ears ring: dark-bearded Olson, holding a tiny white-robed infant and bending over the baptismal font. Someone would have to arrange the funeral. The first rites to the last.